“Before I go, I want to share this story with you because it is important to this point. I want your community to know that one of the coolest people I ever met was a transgender woman. And this is not A Man that I knew that became 'A Woman', This Woman was Trans when I met her. Lived in San Francisco, Daphne Dwarman is the name. I would do 18 shows in the Bay Area sometimes in Oakland and Dirty Hood night club and she would be there, White Trans-Woman, laughing loud and hard, at everything I said. Especially the trans jokes, very puzzling… because she was obviously Trans. And one night after one of the shows I met her.
And what it was, turns out it was Her Dream to be A Comedian.
And I was Her Hero.
It was very moving. I could not dislike somebody that felt that way about me. We became fast friends.
And when I made that special Sticks and Stones right as it was coming out, I happened to be in San Francisco and I wanted to do a show. But I needed an opening act, and I remembered… that trans woman I had met, so I called her on the phone. And I called her myself, I said, “Hey Daphne, this is Dave Chappelle.” She couldn’t believe it. And I go, “I’m in San Francisco.” And then she started saying a bunch of wild stuff, I was like “Relax now, I don’t want any pussy, I was… [laughter] I’m just calling, because I’m doing a show and I need an opening act. And I was wondering if you’d open the show?” And she was like, “Fuck, yeah.”
Now… I didn’t know this at the time but this woman had only done stand up comedy eight times in her life. This was little to no experience and now she’s about to open a show for what many call The GOAT.
[audience cheers]
[applause]
She’s an amateur in stature, but in practice, she was very professional. She showed up early, which is something I appreciate ’cause I like people to be on time. She was dressed to the motherfuckin’ nines, I mean, I’m transphobic and even I was like, “You look nice.”
[laughter]
Went up on the stage with all the swag of a professional comedian, grabbed that mic and walked right down the middle and looked at the crowd like a gangster. Man, you should have seen her work. This bitch bombed for 45 minutes, straight.
[cheers]
And I’m not exaggerating, Young Man. That show was terrible. Stunk. Stunk. And then she brings me on, and you know, I was like a glass of water after a handful of salt. The crowd was happy to see me. I was killing it. But here is what impressed me. Any other comedian I’ve ever seen, if they had bombed as bad as she did, would have snuck out of the back of the theatre and went home and cried or something, but she didn’t do that. Not only did she not leave, she found a seat, right up in front. You know, when a new comedian watches an experienced comedian in comedy we call this “taking class.” And this bitch took my whole class, she sat up there and was laughing as hard as she always laughs as if nothing bad had even happened to her.
And I saw her show.
Something bad happened to her.
[audience laughs]
She was drunk. So she starts talking to me, while I’m onstage but the way a person would talk to a television when they were alone. She was talking to me like that. That didn’t bother me ’cause I knew her.
But the crowd didn’t like that shit at all ’cause she sucked.
And a guy in the back of the room stood up and Daphne’s hair was dyed blonde at the time and the guy screamed out, and his energy felt Wild as Fuck.
He said, “Hey Daphne!” and everybody got clamped, they got tense.
We didn’t know who was a heckler or active shooter, and… [laughter] …he said, “Does the carpet match the drapes?” It was fucked up. The whole crowd kind of groaned, ’cause it was so like, mean.
Everybody groaned, except for Daphne. She kind of laughed, which was weird.
And she didn’t even look all the way back.
She said, “Sir, I don’t have carpets, I have hardwood floors.” Just like that. [laughter] Just like that.
[applause]
Boy, when she said that shit, it blew the roof of the place. Cut through all the tension, with that one joke. She had made up for 45 minutes of a stinker of a show. And after that, she could Do No Wrong. And I kept on rocking, and she kept on talking to me.
And then The Show became something cooler than A Show. It became like A Conversation between a Black Man and a White Trans-Woman and we started getting to the bottom of shit.
All of them questions that you think about that you’d be afraid to ask, I was just asking them and she was answering them and her answers were funny as shit. The crowd was falling out of their chairs and at the end of the show, I go, “Well, Daphne”… I said “Well, that was fun.”
I go, “I love you to death, but I have no fuckin’ idea what you’re talking about.”
The whole crow laughed except for Daphne.
Man, she looks at me like I’m not her friend anymore. Like I’m something bigger than me, like I’m the whole world in a guy.
Then she said, “I don’t need you to understand me.”
I said, “What?”
She said, “I just need you to believe…”
Just like that she goes, “…that I’m having A Human Experience.”
And when she said it the whole crowd kind of gasped.
And I gave The Fight Club-look.
I said, “I believe you, bitch.”
[laughter]
Because she didn’t say anything about pronouns.
She didn’t say anything about me being in Trouble.
She said, “Just believe I’m a person and I’m going through it.”
I know I believe you, because it takes one to know one.
[cheers and applause]
Then I told the crowd “Good night.”
And they started going crazy and before the applause gets to it’s crescendo I was saying, “Don’t forget my opening act, Daphne.”
And the crowd stood up. And I looked at her, tears came out of her eyes she couldn’t believe it was happening.
I couldn’t believe it was happening ’cause her show stunk. [laughter] And it was a great night. And I remember, the late great Paul Mooney was there bunch of flyers, comedy n*ggas was there.
[cheers]
[applause]
And we all went backstage and was just drinking and talking shit and laughing and Daphne stole the room, she had everyone cracking up.
Spinning the yarn, telling us all these crazy stories about shit, she’d be into. We all laughing real hard, and there she is telling us and everyone is laughing.
I’m looking around, I’m like, “Oh my God, she is funny.”
I pulled her aside, I said, “You’re hilarious. I didn’t know that when you were onstage.” [laughter]
I said, “You’re doing some things wrong but I can help you.”
I said, “Anytime I’m in San Francisco why don’t you open the show for me and I’ll just try to give you some pointers and see if you can work this thing out.”
She said, “Are you serious?”
I was like, “Yeah.”
And she grabbed me real tight, hugged me, squeezed me. And I pushed her off violently, ’cause I’m transphobic.
I said “Boundaries, bitch!”
[audience laughs]
When Sticks and Stones came out… a lot of people in 'The Trans Community' were furious with me and apparently they dragged me on Twitter -- I don’t give a fuck, ’cause Twitter is not a real place.
[audience laughs]
[cheers and applause]
And the hardest thing for a person to do is go against Their Tribe if they disagree with Their Tribe, but Daphne did that for me. She wrote a tweet that was very beautiful and what she said was and it is almost exactly what she said. She said, “Punching down on someone, requires you to think less of them and I know him, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t punch up, he doesn’t punch down he punches lines, and he is a Master at His Craft.” That’s what she said.
[audience cheers]
Beautiful tweet, beautiful friend, it took a lot of heart to defend me like that, and when she did that the trans community dragged that bitch all over Twitter. For days, they was going in on her, and she was holding her own ’cause she’s funny.
But six days after that wonderful night I described to you,
My Friend Daphne killed herself.
Oh yeah, this is a True Story, My Heart was broken. Yeah, it wasn’t the jokes. I don’t know if was them dragging or I don’t know what was going on in her life but I bet dragging her didn’t help. I was very angry at them, I was very angry at her.
I felt like Daphne lied to me.
She always said, she identified as A Woman.
And then one day she goes up to the roof of her building and jumps off and kills herself.
Clearly… only A Man would do some gangster shit like that.
Hear me out. As hard as it is to hear a joke like that I’m telling you right now, Daphne would have loved that joke. That is why she was my friend.
[cheers and applause]
I was reading her obituary and I found out, she was survived by A Daughter. And the moment I found that out, and this is true Anderson Cooper from CNN texted me. And all he says, it’s very nice, he said, “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.” And I texted him right back. “New phone, who this?” [laughter] He said, “It’s Anderson Cooper.”
"Oh," I said, “Anderson, look I need to find Her Family.”
And he texted me right back with all the phone numbers and all this information. I say this to say, if you ever want to know about anything gay call Anderson Cooper from CNN. This n*gga is faster than Google. [laughter]
What I did is, I got in touch with Her Family and I started a Trust Fund for Her Daughter ’cause I know that is all she ever really cared about.
[applause]
[applause]
[cheers]
